Our goal is a healthy LC high fat macro and mandatory daily protein regimen resulting in a state of Nutritional Ketosis. Ideal ratios for fat range from about 65% to 85% of calories. Protein is kept moderate. Total carbs are 50g or less. The short version is: Eat your required protein grams, keep total carbs low and the rest of your calories are fat. This is not a very low calorie thread.

Protein

In his book, Dr. Phinney recommends 1.5-2.0g/kg reference weight for protein grams. Separately Dr. Phinney has said that he leans towards 1.0-1.5g/kg reference weight. Reference weight is the appropriate weight for your height. It is important to use the correct weight for the formula because overeating protein can interfere with weight loss. So use the right weight even if you have a higher intermediate goal weight.

Use the 1.5g/kg from the published book as your start point. If you need to you can fall back to the 1.0-1.5g/kg range. See this post.

Fat

Most of your calories should come from fat.

Carbs

50g total carbs (not net) or less. Start low on carbs.

Calories

According to Dr. Phinney, an obese person burns about 30kCal per kg of weight and a moderately active adult close to their correct weight burns 35kCal per kg of weight. He attributes the difference, 30 to 35, to an obese person being more sedentary than a person at the right weight for their body.

From page 207 of The Art and Science of Low Carb Living:

"As an aside, the casual reader might protest that these energy expenditure numbers look pretty high. But for anyone that has worked with obese humans in a metabolic research ward, 30kcal per kg of actual body weight in the sedentary obese and 35 kcal/kg in the post-obese moderately active adult are actually quite conservative expenditure values."

For example: You are fat, your goal weight is 150 and right now you weigh 225.

How much should you eat? I don't know but it is probably not as little as you think. Use the formula to guestimate your current calorie expenditure and then start with 500 less calories. In the example above, that'd be a start point of about 2500 a day.

There are many health risks related to eating very low calories, like loss of lean body mass and metabolism down regulation, and it is hard to stick to a plan with very low calories. Very low calorie plans frequently result in binges which will wreck your efforts at NK. Start high and work down as needed but go down slowly. Panic is the enemy of success.

Macros

Macro ratios are a great tool to help you keep an eye on what you are doing but they can be very deceptive. 15% protein at 1500 calories is very different from 15% at 3000 calories. You can have great looking macros that are hiding terrible real numbers. Don't get stuck on macro percentages. Always check your protein grams to make sure you are eating to your goal.

Daily/Weekly Weigh-Ins

Do you weigh in daily or weekly? Totally up to you! I weigh in daily because I like the constant feedback. *BUT*, if you choose to do daily weigh-ins you have to accept that daily weights are a snapshot in time only. They are interesting data points but that is all and they are meaningless without the context of time. In other words, weigh-in daily if you want but pay attention to the trend not the individual snapshot of weight.

Tape Measure

You should measure yourself periodically. Knowing that you are losing inches can help keep you from wildly tweaking what you are doing when what you are doing is working even if the scale is saying otherwise. And it feels good to know you have lost inches.

Sodium

Consider your own health condition and any Rx meds but... low carb is not a low sodium way of eating or living. You *must* get your sodium in or your body will suffer. It might suffer silently for a long time before it finally breaks. Or it might express itself as agonizing leg cramps. Those cramps are caused by dehydration and/or a potassium deficiency but if you are a low sodium consumer then your sodium deficiency is contributing to your potassium loss and dehydration. The body excretes potassium if it is forced to conserve sodium because you are not getting enough. That is how important sodium is to your body. Phinney advises 5 Grams of sodium daily. That is a lot of sodium. Fear not! Unless you are going out of your way to eat low sodium you are probably getting 2 to 4 grams in your food every day. A little extra use of the salt shaker will fix up most people just fine. It is worth taking a look at how much sodium you are getting if you use a food logger. Table salt is not one for one on sodium grams. Google for the conversion 'how much sodium in table salt'. If you've been a casual low sodium person then you should pay careful attention to what you are eating and dun your former salt eschewing ways.

Long Term Stalls podcast with Jimmy Moore and Dr. Phinney. I made a list of the things covered in the podcast with the time it is located at within the recording. It isn't all inclusive but it is thorough.

Notes

Join in the conversation any time. Feel free to ask any questions you have. We are all happy to help you. Lurkers are welcome too.

Take your measurement on the forearm side (rather than the hand/finger side) of the wrist bone using a tape measure. Below are the various frame sizes per measurements for men and women. Once you know your frame size you can google 'height weight frame size chart' and find an appropriate goal weight for someone of your height and frame size.

Don't take it for granted that you are small framed or large framed. Measure it.

Women:

Height under 5'2"
Small = wrist size less than 5.5"
Medium = wrist size 5.5" to 5.75"
Large = wrist size over 5.75"

JM: "One thing I have found personally that has helped me is getting adequate amounts of fat in my diet. I think a lot of people when they start a low carb diet and they're brand new and they have never really heard about the high fat aspect of it. They neglect the fat Julia, and they think, 'oh well if low carb is good a low fat version of it must be better'. And that is a great way to doom it really fast".

Dr. Ross: "Doom it, that's right! Because now you are back to low calorie. And low calorie is starvation. Low calorie causes rebound weight gain. Rebound cravings. It is just a disaster area. But it is very hard for people to deprogram themselves from that dieting mentality. 'Hey the less the better. If protein will hold us and we can do without the carbs, lets get rid of the fat too'."

107:57
Dr. Ross: "...and what are the things that suppress thyroid function and interfere with it? Well, low calorie dieting. In 8 hours a real low calorie diet will turn down the thyroid. And then the question is will it ever turn up again naturally. For some people it will but then on the 5th diet it turns down and it won't turn up again.

1:11:37
Dr. Ross: [JM asked about subbing LC/GF foods for high carb counterparts] "...and then the second way is the under eating way 'Okay! I'll just get rid of it all and I'll just, just do the protein and the vegetables and maybe some fats' - That's where I find you know that starvation mentality trips us up so badly."

1:12:15
Dr. Ross: [eating enough] "...Some people just won't do it. They are just so low calorie diet programmed that they can't make themselves eat enough food. And it is so critical to eat enough. Because otherwise blood sugar crashes and we get these terrible cravings. So it is really important that we have enough protein enough fat as our fundamentals and then we move in on the healthy carbs."

If you aren't supplementing start now. Here are a few tips on it to get you started.

Magnesium is a wonder mineral that has far ranging benefits. For LC'rs, on top of all of the other wonderful things it does, it also helps with regularity. It is a must. Go easy! Don't go full dose all at once. Ramp up to whatever dose you set for yourself. Start at 1/4 to 1/2 the RDA and slowly go up over a week or two's time. If you react to your dose don't panic. It will pass. Lower the dose and take a little more time. I currently take 2xRDA.

Google 'LLVLC-ep-602-morley-robbins' for an excellent free podcast about this very important mineral.

Potassium. Dr. Eades of Protein Power advises 4 of the 99mg pills while on induction and then 2 of the 99mg pills, I believe, afterwards. If you are experiencing cramps don't overlook pure water intake. Dehydration causes awful cramps. Google 'dr eades tips & tricks' for a good two part article about induction.

Take a multi-vitamin.

There are others that you probably should be taking daily too. Google 'atlcx-26-dr-jonny-bowden' for a free podcast that is excellent about supplements in general for LC. Jimmy Moore asks the fantastic question 'what are your trapped on a desert island choices' - CoQ10 made the list.

Everyone has a 'window' of weight. The body is fairly lax about how much fluid it retains at any given time and this is generally about 4 pounds worth.

Think of it as one of those horizontal lava doodads with the blue fluid doing a seesaw motion.

So.

You are kicking butt and shedding weight. You weigh in at the low point on the seesaw with your fluid balance low.

A day or a week goes by and you weigh in again. You *have* lost 2 pounds. *But* the seesaw of fluid is now at its high end completely masking your 2 pounds and possibly even showing a gain.

The next day you weigh in again, having lost another .5 pound off your body for real but the blue fluid has tilted to its low end this time and WHOOSH you see a 5 pound drop!

That is why daily weigh ins are interesting but if you happen to be blessed with a wildly tilting blue doodad you are gonna have baffling daily, even weekly, weigh ins. Depending on how fine tuned your way of eating is and how fast or slow you lose weight, Phinney even pushed it out to a full month of this phenomenon masking a net loss - 1 pound a week lost for 4 pounds total for the month but your lava machine is tilted to the high point and you see a disappointing scale reading. No weight lost on the scale or even a few ounces gained.

How much cheese can I eat? I am new, a runner, and just want to lose a couple pounds but maintenance is what I really want to achieve. I am only 5'4" and small frame.

That really depends on your daily caloric needs and whether or not you're sensitive to sodium. Cheese is very high in calories and sodium, and it's really a YMMV sort of thing. I know even putting both of those things aside cheese causes some people to stall. I'm not sure if that's from a casein intolerance some people have like I've seen discussed on here or not, but there's really no way to answer that question accurately for a particular individual.

I just tried the JUDDD diet and not good. I was sooooo starving. I have to eat fat or I will go off on a binge. I had to nip the cravings by having 5 oz. cheese and 5 T. of HWC this morning in my lg. coffee with splenda. Is this okay? I am new and very nervous about this. Also, I am a runner and do have a cheat day on long runs like a bit of chocolate or special treat after marathons. Is this okay or do I have to be extremely strict all of the time.

Had a great trip full of not low carb stuff. I was ready to get home and get back to my regular eats. Boy, it can make ya feel bad fast. But we all had a wonderful time.
Traffic was terrible on the way home. Saw a horse that was killed in a car accident, sat in backed up traffic, went through a terrible storm. We left around 10:30 and got home around 5:30.

Most of the time was spent hiking and looking for fossils with the kids. They weren't ready to leave.

I will not be weighing this month. I'll only keep track of ketones and sometimes blood sugar. The daily weigh ins were making me a little mental with the fluctuations! So I'm going to try a monthly weigh in just to see how it goes. I'll also be taking measurements.

Is intermittant fasting with high fat okay. I have been doing this and feel good after a 24 hour fast from lunch to lunch. I don't do it every day but many days this is what happens because I am so full from the fat. I still end up with 2500 calories!

Huh, I never noticed the frame size post in the other thread... either that must be new, or I was half asleep looking through the last one

I guess I'm medium/large framed. I just so happen to be in one of those "weird" in between sort of zones where I'm at the very end of some of the categories... I'm either 5'5" or 5'6" (I think I might be in the middle or a little closer to 5'6", LOL) and my wrist size is just a hair over 6.5"

I suppose I already knew that though. My mom had a large frame too, and whenever people called me "fat" I always wanted to protest with the all too famous "I'm not fat, I'm big boned" excuse

What does your frame size indicate exactly, just how large your bone structure is and your "ideal" weight pretty much? I was wondering if it governed anything else too

That being said... still stuck at 157.5 this morning, but SO happy it wasn't a gain given how trying the past two days have been for me!

Had a great trip full of not low carb stuff. I was ready to get home and get back to my regular eats. Boy, it can make ya feel bad fast. But we all had a wonderful time.
Traffic was terrible on the way home. Saw a horse that was killed in a car accident, sat in backed up traffic, went through a terrible storm. We left around 10:30 and got home around 5:30.

Most of the time was spent hiking and looking for fossils with the kids. They weren't ready to leave.

I will not be weighing this month. I'll only keep track of ketones and sometimes blood sugar. The daily weigh ins were making me a little mental with the fluctuations! So I'm going to try a monthly weigh in just to see how it goes. I'll also be taking measurements.

March: lost 7.4 pounds

Happy April!

So glad you had a great time, and I know what you mean about the scale making you crazy! I'm going through the same things, although I'm not comfortable enough right now not to weigh every day... I'm still trying to tweak my protein/sodium every day to see the thresholds of what works for me, but good for you on being strong enough to do it monthly!

Does anyone have bloodwork to prove this won't clogg my arteries. Even if it does I don't know if I can ever go back to low fat diets. I would starve and eat everthing from all of the cravings I would get. I mean I could eat like a man! I think I will skip the fruit unless it is in a high fat shake with HWC like with berries or something.

Yay, happy April! I love this month. My birthday 4/20 woot! I'm probably not going to hit my goal this year for my actual b-day but it won't be far from it so that's ok - I'm going to work hard but not beat myself up

So, had a terrible food weekend. Went NUTS. So, back on track with a FRESH month, FRESH start, right!?

#1 goal: KETOSIS

So, today is DAY 1 of my FF. Starting at 181 (ugg...considering I was like 162 a few weeks ago, but ANYWAY...lol) and will be eating NO MORE than 1000 calories today and tomorrow. I really need to get my cravings and appetite under control so hoping a 2 day FF will kick start me in the right direction.

After these 2 days I'm going to review my weight on Wed morning to fig out prot g's and cal's I should be eating to be NK and 80/15/5...

I started my phentermine (again) this morning so that should DEF keep me on track with FF and once my cravings and hunger subside I move into 1/2 dose and taper off then use when I'm feeling bingey and hopefully with NK those feelings will just go AWAY!

Ok, now that is off my chest and I feel good and I'm ready to kill this day. Will check back in tomorrow letting you know that I rocked this Day 1 FF!! WOOT!

Yay, happy April! I love this month. My birthday 4/20 woot! I'm probably not going to hit my goal this year for my actual b-day but it won't be far from it so that's ok - I'm going to work hard but not beat myself up

So, had a terrible food weekend. Went NUTS. So, back on track with a FRESH month, FRESH start, right!?

#1 goal: KETOSIS

So, today is DAY 1 of my FF. Starting at 181 (ugg...considering I was like 162 a few weeks ago, but ANYWAY...lol) and will be eating NO MORE than 1000 calories today and tomorrow. I really need to get my cravings and appetite under control so hoping a 2 day FF will kick start me in the right direction.

After these 2 days I'm going to review my weight on Wed morning to fig out prot g's and cal's I should be eating to be NK and 80/15/5...

I started my phentermine (again) this morning so that should DEF keep me on track with FF and once my cravings and hunger subside I move into 1/2 dose and taper off then use when I'm feeling bingey and hopefully with NK those feelings will just go AWAY!

Ok, now that is off my chest and I feel good and I'm ready to kill this day. Will check back in tomorrow letting you know that I rocked this Day 1 FF!! WOOT!

Happy low carb, high fat day to all!

Good job refocusing on getting back on track!

But eat more. Very low calorie won't really help you get back into ketosis. The blood sugar response, cortisol response and general stress of low cal all run counter to regaining ketosis. Try 1500 cals which is still low for you but won't stress your body and mind so much.

Does anyone have bloodwork to prove this won't clogg my arteries. Even if it does I don't know if I can ever go back to low fat diets. I would starve and eat everthing from all of the cravings I would get. I mean I could eat like a man! I think I will skip the fruit unless it is in a high fat shake with HWC like with berries or something.

You can google Jimmy Moore for evidence of how NK affects health. He has thoroughly documented and commented on his year long NK experiment complete with all sorts of tests he has had done.

Jimmy Moore has a ton of podcasts covering all sorts of health related issues with LC. You should be able to google 'jimmy moore health_issue' and get good hits on podcasts about particular issues. There is also 'The Fat Burning Man' and 'Caveman Doctor' - both have really good podcasts.

What does your frame size indicate exactly, just how large your bone structure is and your "ideal" weight pretty much? I was wondering if it governed anything else too

It gives you a more accurate ideal weight range. You can google for height weight frame size for a chart. There is quite a spread of weight from the low end of small frame to the high end of large frame.

Quote:

That being said... still stuck at 157.5 this morning, but SO happy it wasn't a gain given how trying the past two days have been for me!

Is intermittant fasting with high fat okay. I have been doing this and feel good after a 24 hour fast from lunch to lunch. I don't do it every day but many days this is what happens because I am so full from the fat. I still end up with 2500 calories!

Well. Dr. Phinney is not a fan of IF but plenty of other docs endorse it.

I usually eat one large meal a day. I have CO/HWC/Coffee when I get up. I eat a big lunch and either a small dinner or no dinner. But my coffee mixture is 600 to 800 calories. Lunch is usually around 1200 to 1500 calories. Dinner rounds out my calories for the day.

I try to not eat 100% of my protein grams at lunch so I can spread them out between lunch and dinner.

Had a great trip full of not low carb stuff. I was ready to get home and get back to my regular eats. Boy, it can make ya feel bad fast. But we all had a wonderful time.
Traffic was terrible on the way home. Saw a horse that was killed in a car accident, sat in backed up traffic, went through a terrible storm. We left around 10:30 and got home around 5:30.

Most of the time was spent hiking and looking for fossils with the kids. They weren't ready to leave.

I will not be weighing this month. I'll only keep track of ketones and sometimes blood sugar. The daily weigh ins were making me a little mental with the fluctuations! So I'm going to try a monthly weigh in just to see how it goes. I'll also be taking measurements.

I just tried the JUDDD diet and not good. I was sooooo starving. I have to eat fat or I will go off on a binge. I had to nip the cravings by having 5 oz. cheese and 5 T. of HWC this morning in my lg. coffee with splenda. Is this okay? I am new and very nervous about this. Also, I am a runner and do have a cheat day on long runs like a bit of chocolate or special treat after marathons. Is this okay or do I have to be extremely strict all of the time.

NK is not a part time way of eating so you do need to be strict about carbs. I haven't read it but someone that had told me that the Performance book endorsed carbs. I find that hard to believe. If anyone has the Performance book and can quote that information I'd appreciate it. I think the carbs were from GU?

We are all calorie freaks but NK, like LC, does not have to be a calorie-centric way of eating.

Look for opportunities to add fat to stuff. Sometimes I melt an ounce of butter to use as a dip with my fried chicken breast. I add bacon grease and butter to my broth. CO and HWC in coffee. Sour cream as a dip or added to a dish is good. Fat bombs. Fatty protein rather than low fat protein.

Does anyone have bloodwork to prove this won't clogg my arteries. Even if it does I don't know if I can ever go back to low fat diets. I would starve and eat everthing from all of the cravings I would get. I mean I could eat like a man! I think I will skip the fruit unless it is in a high fat shake with HWC like with berries or something.

Jimmy Moore recently did an artery scan to look for calcium deposits. His pipes are clean. He's been doing low carb for a long time and NK for almost a year. Everything looks good for him.

Weighed in at 189 this morning, up 1 lb. I ate a lot yesterday so I'm sure it is just water weight. I've noticed my loss pattern seems to be hold steady for a week or so, bounce up, then finally the scale goes down. Hopefully I'll see a loss by the end of this week.

My temp job did not work out, the agency called this morning and said the client decided to end the assignment. Oh well, moving onward.

Good morning everyone Happy to see it's April and finally spring here in the north.

So I'm going to do a n=1 this month and see if anything changes.

Today's weigh in, 192.0 I went up a whole pound but I figured something like that would happen after the Easter meals with family and extra carbs, etc. No worries, will likely drop anyway. Hope you guys are having a good day and can't wait for this Saturday as my wife is totally geeking out over Jurassic Park being released to IMAX 3D. She's never seen it on the big screen, so weeee, okay I'm geeking out also, but that's fine.